Fall Themes

Our Class Exploration Into Fall Themes Continues
Our class had the opportunity to go outside and see how apples can be pressed into cider. Each student had a turn cranking the wheel on Mr. D's apple press and watching the juice run into a bucket. The cider was then heated up and we were able to try the end product, delicious!

This past week we observed how pumpkins of many sizes all floated in water. The students made predictions as to whether a small, medium, and large pumpkin would float in a large container of water. We also predicted which pumpkin would have the most seeds. The students all weighed themselves and decided if they would weigh more or less than the largest pumpkin. They all had wonderful guesses and used scientific thinking for many of our weeks experiments.

Field Trip

A Trip To Hudek's And Price Chopper
Our class got to see how the compost from our school becomes rich soil. Mr. Hudek showed our class how the use of wood chips, leaves, manure, and compost becomes rich soil. He even turned some of the huge piles with his bucket loader to show us that it gets hot, very hot, (160 degrees). We got to pick out pumpkins and painted them in the green house and then listen to a story over a glass of freshly pressed cider and fresh apples. We saw how a hand crank machine can take dried corn off the cob in seconds.
We also traveled to Price Chopper to learn how food is processed into the products we buy. We visited the bakery, meat, and seafood departments and every student got to become a check out person. It was a very enlightening experience!!

Pumpkin Time

Our Class Learns About Pumpkins
In an introduction to our pumpkin investigations for the upcoming week, our class took some time to figure out what the pumpkin life cycle looks like. The students placed cards in order on the morning meeting rug to decide how a pumpkin grows from a seed to a harvest ready pumpkin. We took a look at the sprouts, vine, blossoms, and mature pumpkin. This mini lesson is a preview to some exciting literacy and math adventures we will be studying this week. Our class will also be able to get their own pumpkin at Hudek's Farm Stand on Monday and our science workshop this week will include seeing what is inside a pumpkin and we will be doing some measurement exercises as well. Maybe even a pumpkin pie in our future!!

Seed Science

Kindergarten Explores How Seeds Travel
Our Friday science workshop investigated how seeds travel. Mrs. Scott's class joined us for an exploration into the many ways seeds find a new home in nature. Some travel in water, in the air by wind power, or hitchhike in the fur of animals or on our clothing. Seeds can also be carried by birds or ingested by animals and deposited in other locations. Our centers were made up of a seed tasting area that also included looking at fruits and vegetables to find out where their seeds were. We also went outside to see how seeds travel by the wind. We also did a craft that had the students building a sunflower and gluing seeds on the plant. It was a lot of fun for all!!

Geometric Afternoon

Creative, Spacial Learning
After having our class build pictures from user friendly geometric mats, I asked them to create with the blocks anything they wanted. This is when the real fun started. The class built straight up, stretched patterns in all directions, and made images of favorite things. Their creativity was fun to watch and their awareness of spacial connectivity between the different shaped blocks was outstanding.

Kindergarten Vegetable Garden

Bright Beginnings gathers a late season harvest
All five kindergarten classes went to our Bright Beginnings garden to gather carrots, onions, celery, and herbs this morning after breakfast. Our class was astonished to find huge carrots and celery plants that were nothing short of remarkable. We will clean, chop, (Mr. Lewis), and add to a crock pot tomorrow with other ingredients to produce a class "stone soup". Stone soup is a folk tale telling how a community that has very little themselves, can add all the ingredients into one pot to make a feast for the whole town. This will be another community building, hands on experience for our class.

Pumpkin Time

Our Class "gets cooking"

Today we ventured upstairs to our school's professional kitchen for a lesson in muffin making. Mrs. Lamb and Mrs. Smith were there to help our students understand the importance of kitchen sanitation, safety, and know how of cooking pumpkin and chocolate chip muffins. All the students helped with ingredients and the final scooping of the muffin batter into the muffin tins. Mrs. Smith delivered our final product and in the afternoon everyone enjoyed our success, YUMMY!!! The pumpkin was from Hudek's farm stand, where we will be going on our next field trip, and the flour was from King Arthur Flour and the butter from Cabot Creamery, another lesson in buying close to home.

Fall Science

Exploring with fall harvest items 

Mrs. Scott's class joined us for "Fun Friday" science last week and we got to explore giant sunflower heads, dried corn, dried dill, and sunflower seeds. We used the stalks of the sunflowers to stamp our own pictures of sunflowers and did leaf rubbings with some of the sunflower leaves. The students also picked apart sunflowers and dried corn and Mr. Lewis made a sunflower seed and parsley pesto. We had a lot of fun and learned many things through our senses.